one head, a thousand arms,
and no religion. I have fought against them; and I know.

BELZANOR (derisively). Were you frightened, cousin?

The guardsmen roar with laughter, their eyes sparkling at the wit of
their captain.

BEL AFFRIS. No, cousin; but I was beaten. They were frightened
(perhaps); but they scattered us like chaff.

The guardsmen, much damped, utter a growl of contemptuous disgust.

BELZANOR. Could you not die?

BEL AFFRIS. No: that was too easy to be worthy of a descendant of the
gods. Besides, there was no time: all was over in a moment. The attack
came just where we least expected it.

BELZANOR. That shows that the Romans are cowards.

BEL AFFRIS. They care nothing about cowardice, these Romans: they fight
to win. The pride and honor of war are nothing to them.

PERSIAN. Tell us the tale of the battle. What befell?

THE GUARDSMEN (gathering eagerly round Bel Afris). Ay: the tale of the
battle.

BEL AFFRIS. Know then, that I am a novice in the guard of the temple of
Ra in Memphis, serving neither Cleopatra nor her brother Ptolemy, but
only the high gods. We went a journey to inquire of Ptolemy why he had
driven Cleopatra into Syria, and how we of Egypt should deal with the
Roman Pompey, newly come to our shores after his defeat by Caesar at
Pharsalia. What, think ye, did we learn? Even that Caesar is coming
also in hot pursuit of his foe, and that Ptolemy has slain Pompey,
whose severed head he holds in readiness to present to the conqueror.
(Sensation among the guardsmen.) Nay, more: we found that Caesar is
already come; for we had not made half a day's journey on our way back
when we came upon a city rabble flying from his legions, whose landing
they had gone out to withstand.

BELZANOR. And ye, the temple guard! Did you not withstand these legions?

BEL AFFRIS. What man could, that we did. But there came the sound of a
trumpet whose voice was as the cursing of a black mountain. Then saw we
a moving wall of shields coming towards us. You know how the heart burns
when you charge a fortified wall; but how if the fortified wall were to
charge YOU?

THE PERSIAN (exulting in having told them so). Did I not say it?

BEL AFFRIS. When the wall came nigh, it changed into a line of
men--common fellows enough, with helmets, leather tunics, and
breastplates. Every man of them flung his javelin: the one that came my
way drove through my shield as through a papyrus--lo there! (he points
to the ban